I AM A MAGE BUT WITH MILF SYSTEM

The dining hall went completely still.

Liam and Louisa exchanged a glance across the table. It lasted only a moment, but in that brief exchange there was a complete conversation.

Liam’s eyes shifted first as if silently checking whether he had heard correctly. Louisa met his look without hesitation. There was no change in their posture, no outward reaction that would draw attention, yet the shift between them was immediate.

In that shared silence, they both registered the same thing: A new variable has entered the situation.

One they had not prepared for.

At the same time, Marcus sat with his cup halfway to his mouth, his eyes fixed on Kraven and his brain visibly running through something at considerable speed.

Julian watched him do the mathematics.

The conclusion reached the young man’s face before he could properly control it. For a brief moment, it showed clearly, unfiltered, before he managed to arrange his expression back into something neutral.

Being a Supreme Mage at nineteen had once felt like the solid foundation of something extraordinary. And in many ways, it still was.

But if the man sitting across from him had truly reached Archmage while living as the reports suggested Kraven had been living in Ezakael—distracted, indulgent, spending his time in brothels, and avoiding any visible commitment to cultivation—then the space left for him to become the youngest Grand Mage in the kingdom’s history had just narrowed sharply.

The dream did not disappear.

But it was no longer alone. It now had competition—something he had not anticipated and something he had not prepared himself to face.

Marcus set his cup down carefully and said nothing.

However, the most changed reaction at the table was Vanessa’s.

Her posture had gone tight at the edges, and she was looking at Kraven with an expression that had abandoned its careful planning entirely. She looked, for the first time since his return, genuinely rattled.

“Kraven,” she said.

Her voice was even, but the evenness was doing considerable work.

“You are an Arch Mage.”

It was not quite a question.

“Yes,” Julian said.

“How.” She looked at him directly. “You never said anything. Not in any letters, not when you returned, not once.” She paused. “How long?”

Julian looked at her.

“A while,” he said.

“That is not an answer.”

“No,” Julian agreed politely. “It isn’t.”

Vanessa looked at him with the expression of someone deciding that politeness was not going to be sufficient this morning.

“I want proof,” she said.

The table fell quiet again. Everyone seemed to be thinking the same question, but none of them had the audacity to voice it. Instead, they waited until someone else finally said it for them. And now that it had been spoken, there was a subtle sense of relief in the room.

Julian looked at his sister for a moment. Then he set his cup down and released a controlled thread of fire mana upward.

The flame appeared above his palm.

It was not large. He had no interest in creating a scene, nor any need to do so. It was perfectly measured and held at a precise temperature and density that placed it clearly within the Arch Mage range. The quality of its mana was distinct and stable, readable to anyone at the table with enough cultivation to recognize it.

And everyone at the table were qualified enough.

The flame burned steadily for three seconds and gasps filled the entire hall.

Vanessa’s eyes had gone wide, both hands rising slowly to cover her mouth. She stared at the flame above his palm with the eyes that had moved well past surprise into territory that didn’t have a clean name.

The Duke sat with the least disrupted expression at the table.

Julian had already told him about the cultivation level during their first meeting in Ezakael, so he was not hearing anything new. He had been aware of it beforehand and was only mildly surprised to now see it demonstrated in person.

Liam and Louisa were the most interesting.

They looked at the flame. Then at Kraven. Then at each other.

The exchange lasted less than two seconds and contained no words and communicated everything. Julian could read the shape of it clearly from across the table.

Husband. Are you seeing what I am seeing?

Yes. I am seeing exactly what you are seeing.

Louisa swallowed once. Her eyes moved from Kraven to Marcus, a flicker of uncertainty crossing her face as she considered what this might mean for her son’s future.

Marcus.

The young man’s face had drained of color. The composed posture he had maintained throughout the breakfast did not break—he was his father’s son, and he had been raised in rooms where composure was a must—but the sweat gathering along his hairline betrayed what that discipline could not fully contain.

He was a Supreme Mage.

The difference between Supreme and Arch was not a small step upward, nor a slightly more difficult stage on the same path. It was a fundamental gap—something that could not be properly captured through rankings or titles alone.

Even a carefully controlled thread of Arch Mage mana carried enough force that a Supreme Mage’s body would instinctively register it as a threat.

In practical terms, it meant Kraven could kill thousands like Marcus without even needing to expend effort.

The mathematics were not complicated, and Marcus had already worked them out before the flame had even burned for five seconds.

“Put it out,” the Duke said quietly. “They have seen enough.” There was a faint hint of pride in his expression.

Julian did as he was told.

The flame flickered for a moment, then slowly faded, shrinking until the last trace of it disappeared.

For approximately five minutes nobody spoke.

The breakfast sat on the table, cooling. The morning light continued coming through the windows with its complete indifference to what had just happened. A servant appeared briefly at the hall door, read the room in one glance, and disappeared again without entering.